Executes the annual panel review cycle and ongoing panel governance decisions. Synthesises performance scorecard data, billing compliance records, and step-out patterns into panel-level recommendations. Produces the documentation for firm exits, coverage gap assessment, and competitive refresh processes. Covers the full panel governance workflow: annual health assessment through to firm exit and slot refresh.

Executes matter allocation and firm engagement from firm selection through to a live, properly-instructed matter. Match the right firm to a new matter using the right-sourcing framework. Produce a complete matter instruction ready to send. Generate the onboarding checklist that closes conflict clearance, engagement letter, OCG, and e-billing gates. Audit an existing instruction for gaps with a remediation note ready to send. This is the execution layer for a matter that has been sourced. Panel-design-selection (Skill 2) defines which firms are on the panel. RFP-pitch-management (Skill 3) selects firms through a competitive process. This skill instructs the selected firm and closes the onboarding gates.

Designs panel structures, defines firm selection criteria, runs right-sourcing analysis, and assesses coverage gaps for in-house legal teams building or formalising their outside counsel panel. Panel design is not panel review. Design asks: what should the panel look like? Review asks: is the panel performing? This skill builds the framework. Panel-review-rationalisation (Skill 8) measures against it.

Reviews outside counsel invoices against billing guidelines, flags non-compliant entries by category, and produces the documents needed to approve, reduce, reject, and communicate those decisions. Covers the full invoice compliance workflow: line-item review through to formal firm escalation. Works with or without an e-billing platform. Where an e-billing system is in place, LEDES format and UTBMS coding are hard gates. Where there is no e-billing system, invoice submission by email is the channel and UTBMS coding is a best-efforts flag.

Performance scorecard design, post-matter feedback collection, QBR preparation, and firm comparison for in-house legal ops teams evaluating outside counsel. Encodes the methodology for collecting, aggregating, and acting on firm performance data across the relationship lifecycle — from building the initial evaluation framework through to the comparative analysis that informs panel retention and exit decisions.

AFA design, scope-to-fee matching, negotiation preparation, health check, and scope dispute assessment for in-house legal ops teams managing outside counsel arrangements. Design fee structures (fixed, capped, collar, blended, phased, success). Assess whether scope supports a proposed AFA. Prepare commercial positions for fee negotiations. Review existing AFAs against delivery data. Assess OOS claims and build dispute response. Trigger on: 'structure the fee', 'move off hourly', 'design an AFA', 'does scope support a fixed fee?', 'negotiate the fee', 'renegotiate the arrangement', 'is our AFA holding?', 'fee health check', 'cap is being approached', 'firm is claiming OOS', 'is this in scope?', 'is this OOS?', 'AI should reduce the cost', 'blended rate vs fixed', 'collar arrangement', 'phased fees'.

Runs structured RFP processes for selecting outside counsel — from drafting the initial document through evaluating firm responses and producing a defensible selection recommendation for GC sign-off. An average law firm spends 47 hours on an RFP response. That cost gets built into the price of legal services. Poorly structured RFPs produce responses that are incomparable and select by default for the most polished proposal, not the best firm. This skill encodes the methodology for running processes that produce genuine comparability and defensible decisions.

Drafts, reviews, and maintains outside counsel guidelines (OCGs) — the operational document that sets expectations for how external law firms bill, staff, communicate, and deliver legal services. OCGs are the single lowest-cost, highest-impact intervention available to an in-house legal ops function. 60% of in-house teams don't have them. Of the 40% that do, 87% barely enforce them. This skill encodes the methodology for building OCGs calibrated to the team's maturity level and producing the internal business case to get them adopted.